Pop Skull (2007)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Adam Wingard

Writers:

E.L. Katz (writer) and
Lane Hughes (writer) ...

Genre:

Drama | Horror

Plot:

Pop Skull depicts the lonely and disjointed life of Daniel, a young Alabama pill addict, as his efforts...

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Lane Hughes	...	Daniel
Brandon Carroll	...	Jeff
Maggie Henry	...	Natalie
Hannah Hughes	...	Morgan
Jeff Dylan Graham	...	Matt Tepper
L.C. Holt	...	Victor
E.L. Katz	...	Eddie
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jennifer Price	...	Mom
Debbie Stefanov	...	Abby
Adam Wingard	...	Raymond

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Company:

Hunter Films

Trivia:

Screenwriter E.L. Katz directed the fake vampire film within a film "Evil Whispers". Director Adam Wingard has an appearance in it as the vampire hunter "Raymond".

Movie Connections:

References Soylent Green (1973)

Soundtrack:

Apistat Commander

frightening in ways other than traditional horror

I heard about this movie from a friend I've never met in person (a IMDb contact) who asked me if I'd heard about it, and I hadn't. He mentioned a friend of his was in it (also in "Home Sick") so I snagged a copy when it came out because it sounded interesting.

Daniel has recently broken up with his girlfriend, who is apparently seeing someone else, and he's seemingly begun a downward spiral by visiting his drug connection (CVS) on a regular basis. You know those little packages of decongestants, cold medicine, allergy medicine, etc? It's not intended you take the whole package at one time, but that's what Daniel does, and he apparently gets some gnarly hallucinations & reactions to it. But Daniel also appears to have been JUST a little messed up by continuing to do this.

Now, the house where Daniel lives was supposedly home to two brothers who were a bit troubled themselves, and they did something very bad to a woman right there in the back yard, many years previously. Now Daniel knows about this story, & he thinks that he may be seeing ghosts. With as much over the counter remedies that Daniel puts in himself, he's lucky that's ALL he's seeing. But you definitely begin to wonder if he's just hallucinating or if there's something really going on.

Daniel's friend Jeff knows that Daniel is having a bad time, and knows kind of what he's been up to with his self-medication, and they've been friends for a long time & he is trying to pull Daniel out of his funk, but Daniel doesn't seem to want to change anything, although he's obviously not happy with his life.

There's somewhat of an ambiguous ending to this that leaves you wondering, and I will have to watch this a second time to see if I can figure out what happened.

Oh, a word of warning: At the beginning of the film, there's a warning that if you're epileptic, do NOT watch this film. This warning is probably very appropriate. There are some scenes with strobing colors and lights (an illustration of what happens when you don't follow the dosage on cold medicine, I guess), and I had a hard time watching those scenes myself, in fact I had to look away a couple times.

This is a very low-key film, and probably too slow-moving for a lot of people, but it's rather strange and creepy. I can identify with the substance abuse angle, which I found somewhat disturbing, because I've been there before myself & it's not an answer to anything. Although it is pretty good at making you forget your troubles and everything else. I gave this an extra star for effort & imagination, and while I didn't think it was entirely successful (the odd ending) I did think it was pretty worthwhile for an independent film. 7 out of 10.